Eries
history is a long and colorful one, but growing up as a great
lakes port is perhaps Eries greatest the single influence.
In the 1700 and 1800 Erie was a vital link in the navigation of
the great lakes. The safe harbor of the bay provides a natural
port for both commercial and military needs, but the sailor on
the ships have a few legends of their own. Tales a few 20th
century boater claim have a basis in truth.

Anyone
whos spent summer weekends aboard a boat bobbing in the
surf off Presque isle has a healthy respect for ferocity of the
lake. If youve ever taken sail during a small craft
warnings have arisen, you know the quick and powerful anger of
Lake Erie. Anger often felt by early sailors, whose home was the
port of Erie. Since the beginning of Great Lakes sailing careful
records were kept of the many shipwrecks off Eries shores.
The causes were listed as collision, capsizing, destroyed by
fire, but there exists a large file marked disappeared.

According
to early sailors there exists off the shores of Lake Erie a
strange creature, a creature they have called the Storm Hag.
According to sailing legend the storm hag was a creature so
terrible the mere sight of it would turn the bravest of men pale
with fear, the stories are many.

A dark
and stormy fall evening 1782, an owler ship is tossed about from
wave to wave in a last ditch attempt to make back to the safety
of Presque Isle. For a moment the lake settles, moonlight
reflected in the midnight aqua mirror. Suddenly with out warning
the violent storm hag rises, spewing forth venom she thrusts
forward. The shrieking screams of her victim echoing across the
lake. There are those today that claim to have heard those
ancient echoes, the last scream of drowning men swallowed by the
fury of the lake.

Mighty
ships have vanished without a trace just off the shores of Lake
Erie. These events have occurred; victims of the storm hag or of
what some have called the Great Lakes Triangle? An area which
includes the shores of Erie County and which according to author
Howard Burliz has more than its share of disappearances.
These mysterious disappearances continue to occur, and the
include airplanes as well as ships.

In fact more ships and
planes have been lost in the Great Lakes Triangle than have
within the famed Bermuda Triangle.